


Before The Gates of Cibola

by Reddwarfer



Category: The Stand - Stephen King
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 10:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8888239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reddwarfer/pseuds/Reddwarfer
Summary: It's not a long drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas, but an important one.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cadmean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadmean/gifts).



> I was excited when I got your prompt. I love The Stand. I recently re-read the expanded version of it over the summer and I probably watch the mini-series every other week. So many fascinating stories waiting to be told! I hope you enjoy this as much I as I did writing it.

When Lloyd follows Flagg out the final door leading outdoors, he feels somehow less safe than he'd been an hour ago. He firmly ignores it. Flagg still has a grip on him, bearing him firmly to his car, ready and waiting in the nearly deserted parking lot. A white Buick, clearly an older model. Something from the late seventies, he reckoned. He couldn't say why, exactly, but it surprises him. Flagg looks like a man who'd have a different type of car. Lloyd couldn't say what, precisely, but something with more power. A motorcycle perhaps.

″Gonna get in, Lloyd? Or did you fancy walking the rest of the way″ Flagg says, and Lloyd shakes himself free of his daydream. It must be the hunger, making him slower than usual.

″Yes, yes,″ Lloyd says, nodding like his head was a puppet on a string. He hurries into the passenger seat. Flagg says nothing, but his grin widens as he starts the car. ″Thanks.″

″You're gonna be no use til you've eaten, eh, Lloyd?″ Flagg says, amused. He guides the Buick out and around fallen debris, cars left abandoned, and, strangely enough, an out of place, overturned statue of Jesus. 

Flagg doesn't talk as he drives, perhaps sensing that Lloyd's brain couldn't hold onto a thought any better than a sieve could hold water. He's humming a song that Lloyd doesn't recognize, tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel. After a few minutes, an errant song lyric floats through his head unbidden. _Baby, can you dig your man? He's a righteous man. Baby, can you dig your man?_ One of the screws had been singing it under his breath as he did rounds, only after every few words he'd punctuate it with a sneeze or two.

It's about twenty minutes later when Flagg pulls into a near-empty parking lot of a small, unassuming diner with the word Melly's painted in gold on the window. The door to the building must be locked, Lloyd thinks, because the inside looks clean, untouched. Flagg, however, simply pushes the door open like it'd been waiting for him to try for the handle. 

″C'mon in, Lloyd. Time for some grub,″ Flagg says, ever-present grin on his face. He claps Lloyd on the back and guides him to take a seat on one of the red stools at the counter. Flagg steps behind it and walks into the back. He comes back with a tray of food and fires up the grill. In no time at all, Flagg places a plate down in front of him: a cheeseburger, fries, and a pickle. Two cold cans of Coke follow coupled with a two glasses filled with ice.

Flagg joins him a minute later with a plate of food of his own. 

Lloyd's mouth is dry with want, too dehydrated to salivate, so his eyes do it for him. ″Thanks,″ he mumbles, not daring to spare a glance to the man next to him. He doesn't know what to eat first, so he takes two great gulps of Coke before grabbing his burger with both hands. He takes a large bite, then shifts the burger into one hand so he can shovel a few fries into his still-chewing mouth with the other. 

Part of him knows not to eat too fast. It's been too long since he last ate properly, but he can't seem to stop. He takes another gulp of Coke, and continues his single-minded focus. He only stops when his stomach starts to cramp. There's nothing but a few stray fries and mere crust of the bun left on his plate. His stomach revolts a little more and Lloyd keeps the food down by sheer force of will. He drains the rest of his Coke, now watery with melted ice. He wants to eat the meal all over again, brain heavy with eight days with barely any food. Any more, though, and he'll be chucking it up all over the floor.

″Almost ready to hit the road, Lloyd?″ Flagg asks, and Lloyd nods, still not looking at Flagg's face.

"Just a minute," Lloyd replies to the floor, ready to leave if Flagg says no. 

"Don't take too long," Flagg says, pats him once on the back, and heads back out the door to the car. 

He busies himself by raiding the diner. Something tells him the rest of the journey isn't going to be a leisurely road trip, making easy pit-stops along the way. He finds a Styrofoam cooler in the back. He dumps a half-bag of ice into it. He quickly slaps together a bunch of sandwiches made with the still good chicken salad and tuna fish salad. He tosses in the rest of the cans of Coke. There are a few bags of generic chips in the back and he finds a small black notebook—unused—in the pocket of one of the waitress's aprons. He grabs that, a pen, and a half-used book of matches.

He finds an old pair of jeans, a worn t-shirt, and a beat up pair of trainers in the back room. He changes into them, wanting to be rid of his prison clothes. Not just because he's worn them for more than a week, now, but also to let go of the last tie to his old life. Of the old Lloyd. He touches the black stone with the red flaw around his neck, and knows this is what he's meant to do. He strips himself of the past like a snake shedding its skin. The diner clothes are temporary. When he gets to Vegas, he'll get something better, something that'll make him feel proud and tall. Something worthy of standing by Flagg's side. 

″C'mon, daylight's wasting,″ Flagg says jovially, even though the sun had long-since set, but there's a thread of impatience that Lloyd doesn't want to test. He puts the food stash in the backseat and joins him in the front.

Having eaten, it's like having a veil pulled away from his eyes. The diner they'd eaten at now stands out in his mind as odd, preternatural. Unspoiled food, no flies or dead bodies. Nothing broken and everything still working from electricity to the gas grill. Every building they passed before it and since bear the taint of the Super Flu. Lloyd knows that there had been bad shit going down when he'd been locked up, but even after the screws stopped showing up to work and everyone at the jail started to drop like flies, he never imagined the full scope of it all. 

Part of Lloyd still figured once Flagg sprung him, he'd be able to snag himself some take-out, going through the drive-thru at McDonald's for a Big Mac— _Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions – on a sesame seed bun_ then to eat it while lazing in front of the TV, watching shitty movies. 

The world is dead. Back in his cell, he figured that no one came because no one cared. They left him there to rot, but some part of him never fully understood the breadth of it all. He thought the people with power—real power—just didn't care enough to save a bunch of nobodies like him. Now, he sees no one came because everyone's dead. The curl of anger at being left to rot doesn't disappear, however. It grows. They knew that shit was going down. They knew everyone was dying and soon no one would be left to feed them and they left him locked in anyhow. In someways, knowing this was worse. Dying holding The Key is worse than just playing keep away with it.

″What's with the storm cloud,″ Flagg asks, interrupting Lloyd out of his thoughts.

Lloyd frowns. ″It's nothing important,″ he says. They're all dead now, Lloyd thinks. They're all dead and he has The Key now. He'll make sure he's worthy of it. 

Flagg chuckles. Even without saying anything, Lloyd suspects Flagg knows exactly what he was thinking about. ″We've got a lot of work to do, my friend. A few people will be waiting for us when we get there, but more will come after we arrive. In small pockets at first, but soon it'll be a deluge. We need to establish rules first before people get it in their heads that they're in charge.″

Flagg laughs again and it sends a chill in Lloyd. He wouldn't want to be someone to cross the man next to him. 

The miles pass with Flagg speaking a steady stream of ideas and plans. He mentions at intervals of people he Sees coming to Vegas. One who knows how to get the power back on. Another who knows a thing or two about flying planes. 

The normally four-hour drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas is made longer by the roads being cluttered with abandoned cars, some wrecked vehicles, and other roadblocks. They avoid most of them by driving off-road. The Buick holds up surprisingly well and only needs refueling once from a portable gas-can Flagg had stored in the trunk. 

When sky starts to lighten, Lloyd pulls the small black notebook he took from the diner and starts jotting down all the important highlights from the night before. 

″You're gonna do just fine, Lloyd,″ Flagg says and the praise is a glowing ember in the pit of Lloyd's belly. ″We're gonna whip this little community of ours into shape and then we'll make all the people who deserve it pay.″

This time, Lloyd grins back.

 

They pull into Vegas around noon. At first, it's quiet, which settles wrong in his skin. It's Vegas. It should be lights and crowds and the din of casinos. Then, slowly, people emerge from one of the hotels. 

″Is it really him?″ he hears a woman ask. There's a group of people huddled together, each crowding each other to get a good look at both him and Flagg.

″Howdy everybody,″ Flagg greets, that unsettling grin on his face, arms spread wide.

″You're really real. You're here,″ a woman—Jenny, he finds out later—says, and swoops down and presses a kiss to Flagg's boots.


End file.
